Such was then an Auto da Fe, certainly a sad and sorrowful sight, but still, perhaps not so emotional as the sight of certain trials to which in our day the public flock, not to sanction by their presence the judgment and justice nor as a warning lesson, but greedy to see the seamy side of sorrow and crime. As to the horrible scenes of the "Quemadero" (the burning), no one attended them but those obliged by their office, and a public low and ignorant, no doubt, and for this reason much more blameless than those who nowadays attend our executions, full of unhealthy curiosity or cold indifference. There is no doubt, says the profound thinker Balmes, that, if the doctrine of those who wish to abolish the death penalty should ever become effective, when posterity reads of the executions of our days, they will be as horrified as we are over those of the past. The gallows, garrotte and the guillotine will be placed on a par with the ancient "Quemaderos." Tired by the long wait and the dull reading, Jeromín ended by falling asleep, his head leaning against Doña Magdalena's knees, but he woke up in the midst of a strange tumult, of which he was far from knowing that he was the cause. This is how Vander Hammen describes the scene: "At it (the Auto) the greater part of Old Castille was present, and a great number of Andalucians and those from New Castille, and as the news spread about everywhere of the new son of Charles V, a little more and there would have been a serious disaster, as everyone wanted to see him and the guards could not check them. "The people threw themselves on each other without minding the halberds, javelins or arquebuses. It came to this, that the Conde de Osorno had to carry him in his arms to the Princess's carriage, because everyone liked him. In it the sister took him to the Palace (the house of the Conde de Benavente), followed by a crowd of people, and from there he went back with Doña Magdalena to her Villagarcia." All the same, Vander Hammen is wrong in what he says about the Princess and other things. The Conde de Osorno did, it is true, take Jeromín and lift him up to show him to the people, but he did not give him into the Princess's charge, nor did she commit the imprudence of taking him with her to the Palace. He gave him into Doña Magdalena's care, from whom he had got separated in the confusion, and this lady took him back the same night to Villagarcia. The child, frightened by the tumult, whose cause he did not suspect, asked with rather timid anxiety whether the heretics had escaped. CHAPTER XVI